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There is a range of internet marketing tools that can assist websites in growing their traffic, conversion rates, and brand awareness. Among the best internet marketing tactics is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), where the aim is to optimise your website for Search Engines, both on-page and off-page, to increase your organic search results listings. While SEO has proved to be very effective, it takes a fair level of knowledge, time, and money to see fruition.

But what if you need to see results straight away? Regardless of whether your website has just been published or you’re a local business that can’t rival the marketing budgets of national competitors, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is an amazing tool that can assist you by placing your advertisements in front of individuals who are proactively browsing for your services or products.

In a nutshell, PPC is an advertising model used to increase traffic to websites. Website owners set up ad campaigns with specific targeting metrics and essentially pay Search Engines every time their ad is clicked. PPC ads are generally created through Google AdWords or Bing Ads and are inserted on top of SERP listings before any organic results. The rewards that many websites harvest from this type of advertising is invaluable, so here are the top advantages of PPC advertising for your enterprise.

Measurable Results

One of the top advantages of PPC advertising is the opportunity to evaluate and track your results in real-time. Whether or not you set your daily budget to $4 or $40, there are a range of high level performance indicators that can be quantified, for example impressions, clicks, cost-per-click, conversions, and ROI among others. These metrics allows website owners to effectively determine the performance of their campaigns and quickly make changes where required to maximise performance. In contrast to other advertising channels, PPC grants you the freedom to customise and track metrics in every campaign and monitor success according to your advertising objectives.

Fast Entry

PPC allows any type of organisation to set up their advertising efforts quickly and easily, without creating too much risk with the capability to set a maximum daily budget. Although SEO is a very reliable strategy, it normally takes many months to see results so if you’re a new business that needs to increase traffic and brand awareness without delay, PPC is ideal for you. Building ad campaigns is all done from the PPC platform, allowing websites to cast a wide net to acquire new leads and customers by promoting ads on top of SERP listings.

Highly Targeted Traffic

PPC advertising allows you to customise your campaigns so they only display to highly targeted customers. Google AdWords enables you to target customers according to keywords, location, interests, and the times and days you would like to display them, enabling websites to spend their advertising budget only on their niche audience. Websites can then analyse the metrics that were used in conversions and enhance their future campaigns based upon this feedback. Advertisers normally take a multi-layered approach to begin with and narrow down the specific metrics of a campaign that works best for their particular target market.

Valuable Data

Being able to export the results of an advertising campaign and review particular metrics provides websites with valuable data which can be utilised in other marketing channels. In addition to this, websites can rapidly discover impression, click, and conversion data for each keyword or phrase used in their ad campaigns which greatly helps in their SEO efforts. PPC also makes it possible for websites to explore data about their competitors by utilising 3rd party tools such as SpyFy and KeywordSpy, enabling them to create a profile of their competition and what market share is accessible.

As you can see, PPC is a powerful marketing tool that is ideal for all kinds of companies. Not only are advertisers in complete control of their budget, ad campaigns, and target audience, the data received from real-time results provides invaluable feedback to boost future marketing efforts. The best aspect of PPC advertising is that there is very little risk involved with set daily budgets, so why not give it a go today?

If you require any advice in creating your PPC ad campaigns, get in touch with Internet Marketing Experts Bendigo on 1300 595 013, or visit our website for additional information: http://www.internetmarketingexpertsbendigo.com.au

In today’s saturated environment of online marketing, there’s no question that content is king. Content is everywhere you look and folks love consuming it! It should come as no surprise that content is at the hub of nearly all marketing strategies, with close to 94% of small companies centralising their efforts on content marketing. Having said that, with so many businesses now directing their marketing campaigns on content, it’s becoming more and more complex to stick out from the crowd and make your content marketing appealing and effective.

Have you tried content marketing but found that you’re not getting the intended outcomes? Well, you’re quite likely one of many companies that are in the same boat. Don’t give up though, there’s no doubt that content marketing is one of the most beneficial ways of enhancing your customer base. So, here are 4 reasons why your content marketing may not be performing and most importantly, how you can fix them!

You don’t have a strategy

Like any investment, if you don’t have a strategy and specific KPIs to measure results, how can you possibly improve? Posting blogs and sending tweets are fine, but if you don’t have any end goals then you’re simply aiming in the dark. For you to produce captivating content that viewers will engage with, you need to have a clearly-defined strategy that should be aligned with your business objectives.

Regardless if you want to increase brand awareness, website traffic, or conversion rates, your strategy should include KPIs alongside short-term and long-term goals. These marketing goals should complement your business goals so you have a clear understanding of your audience, the purpose of your content, and the kind of content that will work best for you.

Your content is not unique

With the enormous quantity of online companies in today’s times, it’s crucial that your content is distinct from others. Too many businesses will design content without examining the landscape and subsequently create content that just gets lost in the crowd. Your content should be interesting, engaging, and most importantly, offer value to visitors by presenting solutions to usual pain-points in your niche. In addition to this, different types of content suit different communication approaches, so think about the most effective ways you can do this, either through video, infographics, diagrams, or even just thought-provoking or intriguing text.

You don’t promote your content

Some of the biggest mistakes that small businesses make with their content marketing is that they don’t actually market it! Even if you’ve constructed the most ground-breaking article the world has ever witnessed, who will view it if they don’t know it exists? If you want to thrive with your content marketing, it’s critical that you advertise your content through all available networks, including:

Social media (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Reddit).

Email newsletters.

Adding internal links to your blog post.

Pitching to influencers and bloggers in your market.

Proposing it as a guest post to bloggers in your niche.

Featuring links to your content when commenting on other blogs and forums.

Your content is not search engine friendly.

Content comprises a generous portion of your SEO, so it’s imperative that your content is SEO friendly and never use black hat tactics to try to boost results. Keyword stuffing is a standard mistake that companies will make in their content creation, together with using the wrong keywords, duplicate content, and not optimising their meta tags.

Undertake some homework to identify the most ideal keywords that your target market would use to find your content. Additionally, use meta tags to your benefit to attract more readers to your blog. Search engines always intend to deliver the best content to users, so if your content is engaging then other sites will link to it, increasing the chances of acquiring more high-quality, trusted links from relevant businesses.

At the end of the day, there might be hundreds of reasons why your content marketing isn’t giving you the desired results, however these recommendations should cover most of them. If you’re going to invest in content marketing, you can’t do it half-heartedly. Conduct as much research as you can about your target audience, your competition, and your keywords, and design intriguing content that your viewers will naturally engage with.

If you’re contemplating giving up on content marketing because of poor results, contact Internet Marketing Experts Bendigo who will be able to point you in the right direction. Call 1300 595 013, or alternatively visit our website for more information: http://www.internetmarketingexpertsbendigo.com.au

In today’s demanding marketplace of digitalisation and globalisation, it’s paramount for companies to use online strategies and techniques that enhance their exposure to customers that are actively searching for their services or products. Search Engines are absolutely the most influential programs that will influence your online visibility, and consequently your website traffic, conversion rates, and ultimately success. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), therefore, is used frequently by most websites to boost their Search Engine rankings, otherwise referred to as ‘Search Engine Results Pages’ (SERPs).

SEO can be an impressive investment that will grow your exposure and conversion rates, or if used incorrectly, can contaminate your rankings and exposure, thus having the opposite effect. The problem with SEO is that its algorithm is continually changing, and most website owners don’t keep up to date with the most updated SEO trends. SEO techniques that worked in 2017 may not necessarily be successful this year, and prominent SEO techniques from 5 years ago may result in your website being penalised today.

Instead of reviewing the top SEO techniques that website owners should be committing to, we’re instead going to delve into the top SEO tactics that will actually penalise your website and therefore should be utterly ignored in 2018.

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing is a regular mistake that many website owners make in an attempt to raise their SERP results. Keyword stuffing is basically the same as it sounds – adding as many keywords/phrases to a websites content or meta tags in any way possible. Search Engine spiders or crawlers can rapidly ascertain how many times a keyword has been used and will penalise websites for excess keyword stuffing. Instead of keyword stuffing, website owners should concentrate their efforts on the sub-topics and related information behind the keywords/phrases themselves.

Aggressive Link Building

Link building has been around since the beginning of SEO, and its performance as an SEO technique has changed rather quickly ever since. Whilst link building is still amongst the leading three SEO tactics in 2018, aggressive link building will decidedly result in your website being penalised. Google weighs links strongly as a ranking indicator given that links are a public recommendation which corresponds with valued information on a website.

Aggressive link building takes place where links are gathered in a synthetic way. Examples of this is where links are situated in poor link directories, purchasing links, link schemes, and other spammy tactics. This SEO tactic will result in penalties for a website and should be discontinued, instead being replaced with a link building strategy that is more user-focused and marketing based.

Excessive Internal Links

One outdated SEO tactic that many individuals still consider to be effective is excessive internal links. There is a common misconception where websites which contain a large amount of links to other pages within the website will enhance their SERP results. The intention in doing this is to strengthen a website’s backlink profile. This is definitely not accurate, as excessive internal links within your website will do more harm than good.

Not Identifying Technical Issues

The backend of a website plays a vital role in SEO, so it’s important not only to pinpoint any technical problems that may harm your SERP rankings, but also keep up to date with the latest best practices. As an example, Google has just published an update regarding SSL encryption, so if a website doesn’t adhere to this update now, it will be penalised. The most prevalent technical problems that impact most websites today are:

Slow loading page times

Mobile errors

Duplicate content

Improper redirects

Unintentional blocked pages

Not Optimising Images

One of the most neglected SEO tactic that will improve your SERP rankings relate to the images within a website. Optimising your website for image search is a reliable way to bolster your SEO, and this can be done largely with the image filename and alt attribute. As an example, instead of supplying an image with a filename of home1.jpg, website owners should instead aim to use a keyword that describes the image. Furthermore, a basic mistake with images is keyword stuffing the alt attribute.

There’s no doubt that a successful SEO strategy will increase a website’s SERP rankings and exposure, however due to many websites abusing SEO tactics in the past, Search Engine’s SEO algorithms are regularly changing and it’s pivotal to keep up with these changes to thrive in today’s online marketplace. If you require any advice with your SEO strategy, or simply haven’t updated your strategy in the last several years, speak with Internet Marketing Experts Bendigo on 1300 595 013, or visit our website for more information: http://www.internetmarketingexpertsbendigo.com.au

Are you new to social networks and want to learn the basics of one of the best platforms in the world? Well, you’ve come to the right place! Twitter is a social networking service where about 330 million users engage with one another through short messages of up 280 characters. Currently there’s over 6,000 tweets being sent through the web every second, differing from standard text messages to videos, gifs, memes, images, and a whole lot more. Twitter is one of the most popular social networking sites and is very different to other social media giants like Instagram and Facebook.

Twitter is a platform where people distribute a medley of information; from news, jokes, politics, or just everyday thoughts about ambiguous topics! As opposed to having a circle of friends like Facebook, Twitter is based upon followers (not necessarily friends) so not only can you interact with friends, but also your favourite sport stars, politicians, and journalists as well. Anything you post on Twitter is available publicly for anyone to see, but don’t stress, you can easily switch your preferences to private if you prefer to.

The very first step in learning Twitter is to be aware of the basic terms and slang used. The following lists the most prevalent vernacular:

Tweet – A 280-character message

Retweet (RT) – Sharing a tweet created by another person

Feed – The list of tweets you’ll find on your homepage from members that you follow

Handle – Your username

Mention (@) – A way of mentioning other people in a tweet (e.g. @EAGames). Any person mentioned in a tweet is informed, being a straightforward way to connect with other people publicly

Direct Message (DM) – A private message (280 characters) sent to another member. You can either select to accept DM’s from all members or just users that you follow

Hashtag (#) – A keyword or phrase used to describe a topic or theme in a discussion (e.g. #Vegans). You can locate tweets from all users that mention a specific hashtag by clicking the hashtag itself.

Creating an Account

Creating an account is quick and easy, just download the app or visit www.twitter.com and click the signup tab. The full name you insert will be your display name, but this can be altered as regularly as you want. Decide on a username (or handle) so members can mention you by typing the @ symbol in front of your username. After you’ve entered your phone number for verification purposes, selected an avatar, and written a quick bio about yourself so others can see your passions and interests, you’re all set to go!

Joining the Twittersphere

As discussed beforehand, Twitter isn’t about friending, it’s about following. Not only can you follow your friends, but also any other personalities of which you’re a supporter. Once you’ve signed up, Twitter will offer a helpful sort of setup wizard to help you get started, for instance suggesting some users that you may be interested in following. You can grant Twitter permission to check your contacts list to look for any of your friends that are already using Twitter. Following friends and other users is really easy, and once you’ve started following certain users, Twitter will continue to provide recommendations for other users to follow depending upon the sorts of users you’re presently following. All the tweets of your followers will be visible in your Feed, so the more you follow, the more Tweets will appear in sequential order in your Feed.

Tweet Something

You can Tweet anything you like, as long as it obeys Twitters rules and guidelines (https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-rules). This includes mentioning other users (@), promoting a topic or theme (#), or Retweeting other user’s comments (RT). Simply select the ‘Compose New Tweet’ button and you can Tweet text, images, photos, videos, gifs – a complete range of different media that can be uploaded via your device. Always remember though, videos can only be up to 2 minutes and 20 seconds long, however photos and images do not count towards your character limit, which is pretty cool!

Once you’ve understood the basics of Twitter, the world is virtually at your fingertips! You can keep up to date with the latest trends, be the first to watch viral posts, and communicate with your friends and favourite personalities in a simple and easy to use interface.

Once you’ve got the ball rolling, the rest will fall into place easily, so why join the Twitterverse today? If you need any help with getting started on Twitter, simply reach out to Internet Marketing Experts Bendigo on 1300 595 013, or visit our website for more information: http://www.internetmarketingexpertsbendigo.com.au

If you’ve just constructed your first website and you’d like to know the ways in which you can increase your organic search results, then you’re certainly on the path to success. SEO is one of the most productive marketing tools as it enables you to get your message in front of possible consumers that are directly searching for your products or services.

Sadly, the answer isn’t very straightforward! Google’s search ranking algorithm is basically its secret to success, so it’s genuinely elaborate and has more than 200 variables that account for the listings in its Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). The good news is, not all variables are formed equally, so you can target the most valuable variables that will have the greatest effect on your SERP listings.

It is necessary to recognise that the weight of each variable changes as time passes, so Google will place more importance on certain variables based upon user behaviour and how Google feels it can maximise the user experience. With this being said, most of the top organic SEO ranking aspects have been in the same position for a number of years now, so understanding these top variables can give you a better understanding of how you can optimise your organic search results to increase website traffic, customer engagement, and ultimately sales.

Content

A great emphasis is placed on content given that Google intends to rank the most relevant websites on top of its search results listings. The recent Hummingbird update allows Google to understand a website’s content structure and how this content adds value to prospective consumers, so composing quality content set in a natural tone will be remunerated with higher rankings. Including articles in your website such as elaborate tutorials, guides, and how-to’s is an ideal start. Additionally, the more content you have, the better it will rank in search results. SerpIQ (https://serpiq.com/) has assessed the top 10 search results and uncovered that the top positions contain content that is approximately 2,400 words in length.

Backlinks

For over a decade now, backlinks have been one of the most important variables in SERP listings because the more links there are to your website from reliable sources, the more trusted your website is viewed. The flip side of the coin is true also though, so beware not to create links on spammy or uncredible websites or your rankings will decrease! Matt Cutts (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC5FDzUh0P4) from Google explains that backlinks will lose value in time as Google tries to find new ways to assess websites, but for the time being, link building is still the best sign of relevance and validity.

Mobile Optimisation

With more users now searching from mobile devices than computer or laptops, there has been a considerable shift towards optimising your website for mobile devices. Google is presently experimenting with mobile-first indexing, which means that Google’s index will soon crawl the mobile version of a website as opposed to the desktop version. If your website isn’t already mobile-friendly, you better make a start but beware not to release it until it’s 100% complete or you may be penalised. Page loading speed is a vital factor for mobile optimisation, so strive to have mobile pages loaded within two seconds to make certain your website is truly ‘mobile-friendly’.

Other Technical Elements

There are numerous other technical factors that will drastically affect your SERP listings, such as security, headings, anchor text, and interstitials. There is a strong relationship between high ranking websites and those that are SSL encrypted (HTTPS), and this is very straightforward to install if you haven’t already done so. In addition, ensure your landing pages have a H1 or H2 heading in the source code, as this has been found to correspond with higher rankings. Other variables such unique and organic backlink anchor text and less on-page advertisements and pop-ups will also enhance your organic search results listings.

Keeping up to date

Google’s search ranking algorithm is constantly changing, meaning that SEO techniques are continuously changing also. Despite the fact that there are over 200 variables in Google’s search ranking algorithm, Google has placed great significance in recent times on rich content, quality links, and a seamless mobile experience. Trying to concentrate on all Google’s search ranking variables will prove to be unproductive, but if you focus on prioritising the abovementioned variables in your SEO efforts, you will be ahead of the competition.

If you need any support in ways to properly execute any of the above SEO techniques, don’t hesitate to get in touch with the digital marketing specialists at Internet Marketing Experts Bendigo by calling 1300 595 013, or alternatively visit their website for additional information: http://www.internetmarketingexpertsbendigo.com.au